SACRAMENTO — If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to speak out forcefully against illegal immigration seems familiar, it is. The governor is using a well-worn tactic to seize public attention amid plummeting approval ratings, analysts and others said Friday.
Speaking to reporters, Schwarzenegger on Friday likened the armed Minuteman group that has roamed the Arizona-Mexico border looking for illegal immigrants to a "neighborhood patrol" that has succeeded where the government failed. A day earlier, he called their work "fantastic" and chastised the Bush administration for failing to secure the border.
Schwarzenegger also had said Thursday that a Spanish-language billboard characterizing Los Angeles as a Mexican city was "divisive," a comment echoed by conservative groups. Last week, the governor said the U.S. should "close the borders" -- a remark his staff said was imprecise and for which he later apologized.
The governor outraged Latino activists and his Democratic opponents with his comments, but he was treading an often effective path, analysts said. Republicans have used California's permeable border as political fodder for years. And Schwarzenegger was elected in 2003 after demanding that people in the state illegally not be issued driver's licenses.
"It wasn't just Republicans who were upset that [former Gov.] Gray Davis signed a bill granting licenses to illegal immigrants," said Elizabeth Garrett, director of the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics.
But by highlighting the Minuteman group this week, Garrett said, Schwarzenegger may have unnecessarily aligned himself with a fringe element and given Democratic opponents, already in political high dudgeon, another tool to use against him.Administration officials scoffed at suggestions that they had a calculated plan to buoy sinking poll numbers by attacking illegal immigration.
Schwarzenegger, they said, was simply addressing a controversial issue, billboards for KCRA-TV Channel 62 that show the words "Los Angeles, CA" with the "CA" crossed out to make the ads read "Los Angeles, Mexico."
When he made the comment praising the Minuteman group, he was responding to a question, as he was when he said earlier that the border should be closed.
Rob Stutzman, his communications director, cautioned against over-analyzing Schwarzenegger or his intentions. He said the governor remains committed to the multipart agenda he unveiled in January for changing state government.
